2002 TAG Fall Cave-In

Three outing club members and two other cavers from Evansville joined up to attend the 25th Annual TAG Fall Cave-In located at the Sequoyah Caverns Campground in Valley Head, Alabama. We ended up doing two pits and almost doing a third. Brandon and I had already bounced Neversink and Cagles Chasm, but Jacob, Erik, and Shaina got to see them for the first time. Instead of just bouncing Cagles again, we entered through Jeepside Pit (110' ish) then found the crawl leading into the side of the main 186' drop. We rigged to some bolts that are definitely in the stages of deterioration and dropped the last 70ish drop into the floor of the main pit. It would make for an interesting through trip, had I not been forced to exit the same way in order to derig. Another first for me was ropewalking instead of frogging. I dropped the cagles main pit after climbing out of Jeepside and used a ropewalker to climb out. I have to admit, it's fun! I compared it to jogging vertically, if such a thing really is possible. Jacob used my frog system to climb out and later cursed at me repetedly. Saturday night there was a big bonfire, music, and then rain. Sunday morning was rather muddy in the camping area. We packed up and visited Moses Tomb. Rather, we visited the entrance and planned to do the pit until we ran out of time. Oh well, it will be there the next time I find myself in the deep south.